I normally don’t post my personal/professional life to this blog, but I figured I’d give it a shot. I just got laid off today due to workforce realignment/restructuring. My office laid off 20% of their staff – 4 people including me. Honestly, I’m not really upset, more relieved. Now I don’t have to worry if I will get laid off or not. Though, I now have to find a new job. So, does anyone know of any opportunities in the DC area? My resume is on here. I’d be interested in anything architectural, graphic design, urban planning, or IT.
Feb 232009
Today starts DesCours, New Orleans’s second annual AIA sponsored public art installation festival. For the next five days the public spaces all over the French Quarter and Central Business District (CBD) will be transformed into interactive design installations. Not only is this a cool chance to inhabit spaces by up and coming artists and designers, but local fixtures such as Rebirth Brass Band and the Trème Brass Band will be filling the spaces with sounds that are distinctly New Orleanian. This “Architects Week” on an urban scale is free and open to the public.
I just finished reading an article on the Wall Street Journal’s site about the green building movement and the practical issues faced with training professionals and navigating an unstable and untested market. As a design profesisonal who keeps putting off his LEED exam in favor of other equally worthy endeavors, this article hit home. The problem with green building right now is that the market is so new and untested both for professionals and for the products. The article describes a situation similar to one I recently faced at work. An architect specified a Green product that ended up not being reliably available which caused delays and impacted budget. In the end litigation was reached. Fortunately, in my situation we were able to determine that the LEED point was unattainable even with the specified product, and that we were well within our target status (silver) so a non-LEED approved solution was found which allowed the budget and schedule not to be impacted. This type of problem is rare in proven markets, when was the last time you heard that concrete or brick was not available? And when they are not, an alternative product usually exists and can be used without [...]
With the recent closing of many of the area’s Circuit City stores and the bleak financial forecast, this Sunday’s Washington Post article about what to do with big box stores after they close down, seemed to be fortuitously timed to impact the local planning discourse. For this article, the Post assembled a collection of local architects and artists, such as Darrel Rippeteau, Roger K. Lewis, Esocoff & Associates, et al., and asked them how they would reuse a big-box store. The graphics in this article are intriguing and open an sub/urban planning discussion on what to do with the trappings of early twenty-first century American development once this business model has changed. The proposals include luxury housing, gardens, vineyards, and other adaptive reuse measures. This is all green and good, but I have to question the safety and cost of reusing these big box stores. Like fast food franchises, big box stores are not built to last. They are not constructed with any concept of their permanence, instead they are meant to go up quick and cheap and come down the same way when the new mega-ultra-super mart opens around the corner. The advantage of reusing old warehouses and factories [...]
Nov 032008
So it looks like Dubai is approaching its Po-Mo phase, Philip Johnson beware!
In an almost deferential move, there is a new building slated for construction that looks like a Turbine (see this post at Inhabitat). Instead of going the Masdar route and building a building that generates its power, this building just refers to the shape of turbines as a way of co-opting the green building trend and making it a design statement. In place of power generation, the “turbine” will generate spectacular views of the desert mirage that is Dubai for the dinners in its floating restaurant.
Nov 032008
Check out my sister’s op-ed piece on the similarities and differences between our current political situation and the Panic of 1837 on The History News Network. Its a really interesting read.
Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, which I blogged about suffering flood damages, has re-opened to special guided tours on a limited basis. These special tours will raise money for restoration and repairs and will focus on the extent of the damages caused by the flooding and the process of historic restoration. More information can be found in this press release from the National Trust for Historic Preservation or at their blog, PreservationNation.
In light of the recent 2 week’s financial news I have been a little preoccupied with reading the news blogs and playing fake day-trader on updown.com and have not found many articles to write about. That being said, I would like to write an extra special post detailing how an economic collapse, or at least a shaky market, will affect the architecture world as we know it. Unfortunately I do not have the knowledge or research to make any grand predictions or explanations. Instead, i will just make my own observations. Here goes the list of things that we might see happen due to recent economic events: Due to a decrease in speculative lending, new construction loans will become harder to get, and many private commercial projects will be tabled. Because of the economic slow down there will be less capital and therefore less commercial growth, so the drop in commercial projects will be compounded by their being less demand. This may be beneficial to the projects that do seek financing, because there will be less fingers in the pie Less commercial growth, in turns creates less personal disposable income and reimbursable business expenses. This can translate to a slow [...]
Today I received an e-mail from The National Trust for Historic Preservation giving me an update on the condition of the Farnsworth House, a piece of seminal modern architecture by Mies van der Rohe. The flood waters have receded, but as you can see in the above photo, there is as expected water and mud damage. The glass windows/walls are intact, as are the travertine floors; the primavera wood panels from the living room were rescued, but much of the built in wood has suffered water damage. The extent of the restoration process is yet to be determined, but because of the large scale damage clean up operations in the area the process will be slow. The full story can be found at PreservationNation.
Due to unusually heavy rains and flooding caused by the remnants of Ike and Lowell, Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House has 1 foot of standing water in it, according to the National Trust’s Blog PreservationNation. The house is built 5′ off of the ground, so that means there 6′ of flood water. Hopefully, when the water subsides, the damage will be able to be repaired.